


What Falls to the Deep

by ImaShayne



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drama, Fantasy AU, M/M, Medieval AU, Merlance, Multi, Royalty AU, Shapeshifting, merkeith, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24318565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaShayne/pseuds/ImaShayne
Summary: Keith has never belonged at the Royal court of his Father. His stepmother, the queen Honerva, has always been cold to him. Keith understands why, no one knew who his mother was, and he held no memories of her. His half brother Lotor, younger by only a few months, has always fit into the role of Heir much better than he ever could. And yet, as Zarkon nears death, Keith will have to step into the role of King.As Zarkon's health continues to decline Keith begins to have dreams of the ocean, and of a boy he met long ago, now held in his memories as nothing more than a fantasy from his childhood. Lance.But as tensions in the castle and court rise, Keith finds these fantasies to be more and more of an escape for himself.Called by the sea Keith finds his once childhood friend, the Mer-boy Lance, is more real than he could have ever imagined, and just might be the key to finding his Mother.
Relationships: Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28
Collections: Voltron Mermaid Tales Bang 2020





	What Falls to the Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jessaliaart on Tumblr for being my artist!!!! it was so fun working on this with you!!!
> 
> And another big shout out to QuietBreeze for beta reading again!

What Falls to the Deep

Chapter1: A Promise

Stories said the castle had been there since before his ancestors had settled these lands, his home for the last eighteen winters. A great marble beast perched high atop the cliffs, the oldest sections carved from the sandstone itself, ancient kings had built up around it. The ashlar of the outer walls were sun-bleached orange, with its towering turrets and wind smoothed bastions melded seamlessly. As if, along with the rest of this harsh, jagged island, the fortress too had simply risen from the sea. 

The tunnels were burrowed out of the mountain and smoothed into a shine that glimmered even when no sun touched the sky, as if a giant serpent had once called this place home. This thought had, once upon a time, given a young Keith nightmares. Eventually, however, these passageways evolved into a safe haven when he’d taken to exploring them. To this day, he’d not mapped out the entirety of the labyrinthine corridors and could still find himself lost within them. 

As he had on this day.

The left turn he’d taken in the bowels of the bluffs had led the prince to a stone balcony hewn from the crags overlooking the Eastern Ocean. It had been the sound of the water and the cry of the gulls, that led him here. The taste of salt and brine upon his tongue grew stronger. How long had it been since another human had stepped foot here? There was no telltale dust to betray its age; he was low enough on the cliffside that water would flood this area at high tide. 

Keith wandered. Upon the walls were multitudes of intricate carvings. Their age was apparent, at least, if not for their depictions, then by the algae growing across the surface, obscuring some of the elaborate scenes. How they’d managed it with such primitive tools, whoever had created it. His ancestors perhaps? Or those who’d come before? Grand arcading framed each setting as if it were a stage, or a doorway that Keith could simply step through. The granite held stories in the sculpted images. Creatures of lore, those of the sea and the sky; Whose forms were almost akin to his own, and yet so different. 

The ceremonies, the battles. These ones particularly tickled at his memories. When he tried to chase this nostalgia it slipped through his fingers like a dream. The heir apparent shrugged off these perpetual feelings. After all, there were many feasts and gatherings he was required to attend. Perhaps he was simply recalling one of those times.

As Keith walked along, it was as if he were watching an entire civilization’s history playing out. He wanted so badly to know more about these mysteries, but knew no one in the royal court would be able to answer his questions, of which there were many. The King was a man of war, not of academia.

The grandiose archways continued even as the walls crumbled and fell away into a crescent of open air. Keith leaned against one of these columns, crossing his arms as his eyes cast out of the tumultuous gray waves, gaze losing the usual sharp focus as he watched the darker storm clouds push out the natural slate gray of the atmosphere. A hint of rain came to Keith on the wind as it blew his hair back, mixing with the perpetual scents of rotting kelp and fish scales.

The northern gales whipped the surface of the sea into white capped crests, darkening everything beneath it until it looked like a swirling void. The cold leached into the prince’s bones. Until, a stray shaft of sunbeams broke through the rolling billows for the briefest of moments, alighting across the hills and valleys of swells, igniting the colors beneath the water as an artist would. Sunshine bending and refracting endlessly through the deep. Drops of many hues like stained glass, from brightest frost and vibrant teal, shades of admiral and lapis, mixing in with emeralds and jades. Each tint a single juncture in time before shifting into another. All so clear for a few seconds that the coral of the reefs could be seen. It felt as if Keith were to lean over far enough he could spot the darting shadows and glittering flakes of the creatures that called the wide oceans their home.

A recollection nagged in the back of his mind, and Keith breathed into it desperately.

***

Keith’s legs pumped as swiftly as his heart, with breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps. There was no more room for the wrenching sobs, though, tears continued to stream uninhibited down his flushed cheeks. More than his eyes stung as the small boy ran from the castle, trying to escape its very shadow. His lip throbbed with each quickened pulse as he stumbled down the rocky slope, angled ever towards that cold, slate ocean.

At least it wasn’t raining. As long as the sun shone its warmth down upon his back, he wouldn’t have to go back; return to the boring lessons on etiquette and diplomacy, to the demanding instructions of his governess Dayak and her whipping crop. To his father’s expectations of the heir apparent. Or to his step-mother and brother, both of whom were always so cold, and so perfect. Or to the vicious rumors spread by the servants. Whispers about his own mother… who she’d been, and where she’d gone…

Keith wasn’t learning how to be a prince fast enough, not like Lotor. It was all so much… too much. In comparison, he was always in the wrong. Lotor never got a disciplinary whip for a misremembered answer.

Why couldn’t his half brother be the king anyway? He enjoyed all of those stories of war and victory told by their father’s bard. Keith could always see the excited gleam within the other boy’s eyes, so much like his own with their aubergine ones.

Keith just wanted to run and never stop. So, at least for now, that’s what he did. His feet followed the gentle curve of the beach, where water met land and blurred the boundaries. Leather shoes made a hard slap against the wet earth. Every so often, the cold water splashed up against his legs. He sprinted onward, until the rocks grew sparse, larger boulders resting, scattered throughout the shallows as if dropped by a giant’s hand long ago, soft sands filling the space between them. It was a rare sunny day, a break in the bleak storms and sultry fogs that permeated the shores and forest. The aroma of baked sand rose to great him as he left the harsher crags behind.

Sweat glistened on his body, streamed down his back and darkened the cloth of his velvet tunic. The sand gave beneath him. Keith wasn’t sure how long he’d ran, or how far he’d come. The young boy only knew he could no longer see the castle and that was all that mattered.

He hauled around the next stone slab, close to collapsing. His eyes as vivid as alliums scanned the area, wanting to be alone, perhaps even find a secluded, hidden place to dip into the water to cool off. This would be as good of a spot as any.

Only he wasn’t alone. 

A boy rested nearby in the sun-warmed sand. A naked boy. His slender body leaned back against the porous surface of the rock, bare arms stretched high above his head, a yawn upon his lips. Never before had Keith seen skin so dark. A favored child of the sun truly, for Keith and all those he knew burned beneath its rays.

Keith gasped, almost tripping over his own feet as he skidded to a halt. “Sorry!” Before he had time to avert his gaze the other was on the move. There was a split moment, only a second in time, for Keith to take in the rest of what he saw, eyes wide in disbelief. There was a flash of tawny skin and teal scales. The boy dove into the tide with a seamless motion… and was gone.

“Hey wait!” Keith shouted, not sure why as his tired legs carried him clumsily into the surf, his hands reading out. After all he’d wanted to be alone… but… there was no way he’d just seen what he had, right? “Come back!”

At first his body was so numb from the haphazardous dash that Keith didn’t notice the chilled water lapping around his ankles, his knees, his hips…

A shiver rocked through him. It was too late to turn around by the time he’d realized his mistake. The current knocked his legs out from beneath him and, as he tried to call out once more, the boy was dragged beneath the waves. His limbs flailed, struggling to get beneath him once more. His face broke past the surface and he gasped, the sunlight blinding as it shone through the water sloshing away from his eyes. Before he could get his bearings or balance, no sight of shore nor land beneath his kicking feet, the weight of his velvet shirt dragged him back under the surface and the riptide dug cold fingers into his throat and lungs.

Keith had never been one for hope. And hope never seemed to have time for him. But he lost the last of it as his digits failed to cross the threshold of the flood above him. He couldn’t be sure if he were sinking or if the lack of oxygen was simply blacking out his vision in slowly growing bubbles of black. He felt the last of his breath leave him in a rush, the pocket of air floating up past his hair.

If this was how he died, he supposed it wasn’t so bad. The cool kiss of the water soothed his aching cheek even as his lungs seized in agony.

Before all else faded to nothing a new sensation came to him as he waited for the end, knowing that whatever memories of his life which did flash behind his lids would be bleak. There was a gentle brush against his lips, and a sudden sweetness upon his tongue and… and arms around his waist?

Keith struggled to keep his eyes open against the sting of the ocean water as it rushed past him. He couldn’t see anything past the blur of blue. Before he could make any sense of what was happening to him his head burst free from the sea, air that rushed into him set a fire to his lungs. The light returned painfully to his eyes and, for a few sputtering moments as Keith was hauled into the shoal until he felt hot granite beneath his shivering body. 

He rolled over onto his stomach and hacked up more water until, after what felt like an eternity, his airways were finally cleared, just a little… just enough. He pushed himself into a sitting position, dragging a shaking hand through his hair as he pulled ragged painful breaths in.

“You doing okay there, buddy?” A voice sounded near Keith’s ear and he jumped back, finally looking up to meet the gaze of the one who saved him.

Eyes so blue they took Keith’s breath away once more caught him. For a moment the boy forgot where he was as he stared unabashedly into those depths, as if he were falling into the sky.

“Helloooo-” The voice breached into his perception and Keith blinked slowly.

“S-sorry—” He averted his gaze downwards, flinching at the expected blow for not listening properly. But no such attack came. The boy wasn’t given a chance to wonder at why he’d been distracted by the other boy’s nakedness… or what would have been his bare body. But where the boy’s torso ended large defined scales of every shade of blue bloomed, continuing down into the rocking waves lapping at the edge of his safe haven. 

Everything about the boy glimmered hypnotically beneath the beams of sunlight. Keith’s eyes could not stay paused on one detail, bouncing from the torso where these plates of brightly hued iridescent became sparse, mingling with the smooth sepia flesh. Small patches continued at random, upon the boy’s shoulders and arms, glittering teals and deep aegeans shifting into the purest greens. The pattern broke with dazzling golds that shone out like small drops of star light, though the rest of this appendage disappeared into the water as Keith watched the end of this tail lifted into the air, waving idly. The fins upon the end were perfect tear drop shapes and sheer. Like petals from a flower they bloomed out from the base of his tail in a gradient from mint to cyan.

Upon the boy’s slim wrist three loops of pure alabaster pearls clacked as this boy—creature?—waved a hand in front of Keith’s eyes. An opaline, azure webbing stretched as thin gossamer between each digit and Keith tried not to stare. But as his attention was pulled back to the other’s face, so human at first glance, he noticed the two large aquamarine fins that protruded from the sides of his head from the perfectly average short brown locks.

He spoke in a normal human voice too, and in the shared common tongue, though his accent was a strange one to Keith.

“Geez, I know I’m pretty amazing, but to make some human child speechless is—”

“Are those your ears?” Keith hadn’t meant to interrupt. In fact, he was still finding the right words. Figuring out the correct questions. Like, ‘why did you save me?’

The other boy’s eyes shifted to the side, studying Keith’s own ears. “Uh… yeah? What about them?”

The prince giggled. He couldn’t help it, despite how badly it hurt his throat, the sound hoarse as it scratched from him.

A rose flush tinted the other’s cheeks as he raised a hand, rubbing the thin membrane between his fingers in an obvious self conscious manner. “H-hey! Don’t laugh at me! Your ears are the ones that’re funny! How do you even hear anything!” He reached over and tweaked Keith’s lobe. “That’s no way to talk to your savior is it?”

It was enough to halt Keith’s laughter, which had been tilting over the edge into hysteria. “I didn’t ask for your help!”

That seemed to shut the creature up for a moment, mouth snapping closed as he stared at Keith. Who struggled to keep this creature’s gaze. And instead dropped it again, unable to help from following the dark outline of the tail that swished beneath the surface.

“But… you called out to me.” Was the simple statement that pulled the prince’s eyes back up— “of course I helped you.”

Keith had no response to this, but a warmth alighted against his pale cheeks. He knew he had to say something, or this mythical beast would disappear into the sea and Keith would be alone again.

“Thank you.” He whispered, peeking through his damp bangs.

A bright smile met him, closer as the boy leaned over the rock, most of his body out of the ocean.

“There. I wasn’t sure if humans knew about manners. You  _ are _ a human… right?”

Keith nodded.

“Woah…” the response was murmured in awe. “you don’t look dangerous at all!”

Keith didn’t know what to make of that statement and so said nothing. Simply watched as the other boy’s hand reached out to him cautiously. There was a moment's hesitation, and Keith broke the tension that built up by closing the distance, his own fingers pressing up against the mer-boy’s. The touch was shockingly cold to Keith, who had expected warmth. Dimples appeared beneath the apples of his cheeks and Keith returned this expression with a tentative smile.

“The name’s Lance! What’s yours?”

It was weird for Keith to be asked his name. He was the prince after all! Almost as strange as talking to a half fish boy.

“Keith.” He left out his official title and felt a new sense of relief fill him. “What  _ are  _ you?”

Lance snorted. “isn’t that obvious?” He asked, pulling himself fully from the sea to lounge next to the human boy. His tail was long, curved elegantly. It was undeniable how the mer-boy preened beneath Keith’s gaze. He opened his mouth, leaning forward as excitement pushed too many questions to the tip of his tongue when a distant call rang out.

Lance shot up, panic clear in his eyes, a similar emotion mirrored in Keith’s own. He was faster this time though, fingers closing around the mer-boy’s arm before he could disappear into the ocean as if he’d been nothing more than sea foam.

“Hey, let go!”

“Will I see you again?”

Another cry came, Keith’s name upon the wind followed by an exasperated “—Your highness please!”

Lance glanced behind the boy, gaze slipping back onto Keith and he gulped, nodding. From his tail he plucked a glittering blue scale and tucked it into Keith’s hand.

“It’s a promise.”

With those words he slipped through Keith’s grasp without so much as a splash.

***

Keith blinked his eyes rapidly, turning away from the ocean. He shook his head. It didn’t do any good to daydream; to allow his thoughts to linger on anything that was not right before his eyes. Better to focus on what he could change with his own hands. Even if that was not much.

He had a mind to delve back into the caverns for more exploration, a decent distraction from such useless fantasies.

Horns sounded loud from high above. Keith startled, cursing under his breath. The king and his warriors were returning from their voyage. Sooner than expected too. The prince’s hours of freedom narrowed as he picked up his pace. He would have to get un-lost speedily to properly greet the triumphant conqueror with the rest of the royal family.


End file.
